Maisemore Local History Society - Summer Outings 2017

The first outing was on Wednesday 24 May 2017 - this was an all-day event coach trip to Rodmarton Manor, an “Arts and Crafts” house filled with beautiful furniture made in that period. We then travelled to Avening where a wonderful buffet lunch was prepared by the WI, which we enjoyed. Then in the afternoon on to Brownshill near Chalford to a very small church, St Mary of the Angels, a Romanesque-Baroque style building surprisingly built as late as the 1930s, where Richard Barton gave us a detailed history of the church - a very successful day.

Our second outing was to Nailsworth on Saturday 24 June 2017. Here we split into two groups and had guided tours of two mills: Gigg Mill and Dunkirk Mill. Our group started with weaving at Gigg Mill with demonstrations by two very knowledgeable people: Peter Frost and Robin Mitchell. We then met up again for lunch at Egypt Mill Hotel and Restaurant. Our group then went to Dunkirk Mill where huge water wheels provided power for the making of fine cloth which became world famous: “Stroud Scarlet” provided the colourful tunics of soldiers, yellow was made into tennis balls and green clad the tops of billiard tables. Plants were grown close to the Gigg Mill providing dyes for the colours of the cloth. Ian McIntosh provided the commentary for the walk to and around Dunkirk Mill with two other people: Keith Browne and Nick Browyer. All in all a long day with so much information given out. What kept occurring were the phrases which had association with the cloth trade. Here are a few: teasing, “wheels within wheels”, “dyed-in-the-wool”, tenterhooks, “fast and loose”, “through the mill”, and lastly “drop him into it”, the sad tale of a very small weaver who kept producing careless work, which of course the very tall powerful mill owner rejected - finally he took the poor man by the collar and hung him out of the window above the mill pond,  threatening to “drop him in it” if he continued to produce any more work which he would have to reject.

Two super outings! We now look forward to the new 2017-2018 season starting on Thursday 21 September 2017 with the AGM followed by a talk on the tsunami which came up the River Severn in 1607 and saw some 2,000 people killed.

Rosealeen Lane, MLHS Secretary